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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 12, No. 6, June 24th, 1949.

Spotlight On The East

page 6

Spotlight On The East

Dr. Chao, Dean of Religion at the University of Yenching, Peiping, and President of the World Council of Churches, has hailed the Communist success in China . . . "China is going over to Communism," he says. "While the Kuomintang have blindly disregarded the lessons of history, the Communists have been willing to learn, thus winning the people and easily leading them to victory over feudalism ... No human power can arrest the motion of the mass strongly forged into solidarity for the revolution."

Meanwhile, on April 1, the right-wing Kuomintang Government gave a parting lash to the people of Nanking by firing on a student demonstration for peace. In case you share Mr. Fraser's fear of "Chinese bandits," and are willing to accept the present trend of events in China as an excuse for introducing military conscription in New Zealand, lend your ear a moment to a few extracts from the Hongkong weekly, "China Digest" for 19 April, 1949, received by the Stud Ass last week.

In a long and enthusiastic article. Dr. T. C. Chao describes the occupation of Peiping by the Peoples Liberation Armies, so assiduously identified in our press with their leaders, the Chinese Communist Party.

A New China

"In the lane leading to the East gate of Yenching University posters appeared: 'Long live the Communist Party!" 'Celebrate the liberation of Tientsin! "Push to Nanking and capture Chiang Kai Shek alive!' In the same lane. Tsing Hua University students were painting big white characters on the wall: "Salute the People's Liberation Armies." It seems that the country round has turned red overnight. A few days later, and now one hears music drums and gongs that accompany the popular Communist songs, and if one is unprejudiced, it is impossible to feel unstirred. One sees dramatic performances that depict the life of the poor in a realistic way It seems as though history were telling its own story that China is going over to Communism.

"The Kuomintang was a short time ago the reigning power invincible with its experienced armies, and in control of almost the whole of China. Its leader Chiang Kai Shek was the idol of the nation. But within the short space of three years, the party finds it necessary to take a flight to Canton while its leader is named the first war criminal by the Communists. His achievements have been forgotten not because the people are short of memory, but because these achievements have been overshadowed by his dictatorship and dogged determination to exterminate the Communists instead of following the people's will to peace, and effecting a moral reformation of his corrupt party. Almost everything the Kuomintang did alienated the people, the liberal-minded and the students who were treated shamefully. Imagination fails to function at the thought that several thousand youngsters were thrown into prlspns, often under secret torture, without a decent trial. Every time a black list was published, those whose names appeared on it went over to the liberated areas, The current knowledge that the biggest sum deposited in an American bank belongs to a Chinese, is enough to explain the rapid success of the Communists in China.

"Chinese history has repeatedly taught the lesson that a dynasty falls when it loses the support of the people. The Chinese race could be exploited indeed, but exploitation has a limit beyond which it cannot go. While the KMT have blindly disregarded the lessons of history, the Communists have been willing to learn, thus winning the people and easily leading them to victories over feudalism.

The immovable begins to move, and as momentum is gained, no human power can arrest the motion of the mass strongly forged into solidarity for revolution.

Intellectuals Go Red

"China's intellectuals have also become growlngly sympathetic towards the Communists. They see things clearly, and being open-minded, find no reason why Communism cannot bo the salvation of their country.

A large majority or them have been reduced to poverty by long years of war. They are therefore in a process of transformation, feeling more and more sympathetic towards the poor and the oppressed. They experienced gradual conversions. The younger generation, students especially, change quickly. Sons and daughters of wealthy parents are willing to live on coarse food within the warm comradeship of the Communists. Only by becoming revolutionary can they gain a sense of worth, acquire a life purpose, and attain to real manhood and womanhood. If a thoughtful young American were transported among Chinese youths of today, it may be doubted if he would not become a Communist too.

Religion Under Communism

"Responsible Communists have made it clear that religious freedom will be given and written into the new constitution. There will also be freedom to criticize and attack religion.

Contact with young Christians among students results in astonishing discoveries of dissatisfaction with the churches. Some are torn between Communism on the one hand, and religious escapism on the other. Christianity as represented by the churches appears often to be a twisted thing, a thing connected with foreign imperialism, bourgeois ideo-syncracles, and the corrupt and dying status quo; a thing that is an opiate of the people, an escape from reality, a high-sounding idealism that is nowhere effective, a source of irresponsible liberalism, atomic individualism, spineless sentimentalism, defeatism in regard to this world and man's capacity in transforming it for his own good—in short an anti-revolutionary dead log to be cleared away. No wonder so many young Christians go over to the Communists!"

"Blood Is On The Grass"

You have just read the words of one of the world's leading Christian intellectuals, on the occasion of his country's disappearing behind the iron curtain. At the same time, the government associated for so long with that Christian gentleman Chiang Kai Shek, was busy testifying to its humanitarian principles:

"It was on the very day the Kuomintang 'Peace' delegations flew to liberated Peiping," says Jack Pel in the same issue of China Digest, "that the bloody massacre of students took place at Nanking."

The Chinese student movement has always been suspected by the right-wing government. Enmity to culture and thought is always the hall-mark of reactionary and fascist governments, and Chiang's has been no exception.

Even in its death-throes, the Kuomintang delivered a desperate and bloody thrust at the students of the old capital. On April 1 last 6,000 students and staff members from 11 Nanking colleges paraded through the streets of the city in a demonstration for genuine peace. Slogans included "No more American Aid to the Kuomintang!" "No more Conscription!" "Away with Hunger and Oppression!"

After the demonstration, the individual college groups made their way home. Then came the cowardly attack by the military. Beating with clubs, a group of 300 KMT army officers rushed into two small groups of students. Harvest: 3 dead, 16 "disappeared" (i.e. arrested for private beating up), 95 seriously injured. Remember July 1947 in Sydney? and Wellington? That is how it begins. Students demonstrating for peace are never popular with governments built on that unstable economic system which must, in the end, rely on war. When such a government has come to make war a matter of policy, then demonstrating students are murdered.

Dollar Fingers

And who has been maintaining this government? No one other than your old Uncle Sam. The Chinese people realize the reactionaries would be helpless without the support of the United States. Those who have so directly experienced American Imperialism, have no love for the diplomatic emanations of Washington, D.C. The first article in the 19 April China Digest is thus of especial interest.

Perhaps Victoria's Debating Society was right in deciding that the Atlantic Pact was not in the interests of world peace. For this article contains the statement of the democratic parties of China on 3rd April—signed by the representatives of eleven organizations, ranging from the liberal National Salvation Society to the rampant Communist Party. (And no punches pulled:) "If the power of money, which has for so long has kept the living standards of the Chinese people at starvation level, plunges the world into war, then it will find the combined might of the Chinese people against them."